Critical librarianship in health sciences libraries: an introduction

Abstract

The Medical Library Association recently announced its commitment to diversity and inclusion. While this is a positive start, critical librarianship takes the crucial concepts of diversity and inclusion one step further by advocating for social justice action and the dismantling of oppressive institutional structures, including white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Critical librarianship takes many forms but, at its root, is focused on interrogating and disrupting inequitable systems, including changing racist cataloging rules, creating student-driven information literacy instruction, supporting inclusive and ethical publishing models, and rejecting the notion of libraries as neutral spaces. This article presents examples of the application of critical practice in libraries as well as ideas for applying critical librarianship to the health sciences. This article has been approved for the Medical Library Association’s Independent Reading Program.

Starting with I: Combating Anti-Blackness in Libraries

“…Critical librarianship, or critlib, is the act of applying principles of social justice and critical theory in libraries with a focus on "both critiquing and changing society as opposed to simply understanding or explaining it," and, as health sciences librarians, we should learn how to apply social justice to our everyday practice. 23 Whiteness is an exclusionary act that continues to show dominance over those who are not a part of it. 24 Therefore, continue to interrogate every aspect of your job to avoid perpetuating whiteness.…”

Medical Library Association Diversity and Inclusion Task Force Report

“…Critical librarianship webinars. At MLA '19, DITF members discussed offering a series of free webinars to introduce critical librarianship to health sciences librarians, as Jill Barr-Walker and Claire Sharifi had recently published a JMLA article about critical librarianship that provided a good overview [5]. Task force members brainstormed how to best introduce this topic and decided to invite Barr-Walker and Sharifi to present the first webinar, along with other librarians who would discuss their journeys with critical librarianship.…”

Proving the proverbial gadfly: situating the historical and racial context of Southern medical works by Mary Louise Marshall

“…In 2019, Barr-Walker and Sharifi provided a primer on how this framework could be applied to health sciences librarianship, detailing specific examples on how critical librarianship can be integrated into the profession's praxis from “technical services and cataloguing” to a broader scope of “libraries and librarianship” [ 14 ]. They concluded by stating, “acknowledging that health sciences libraries and library workers are not neutral is the first step in addressing broader issues in our organizations and profession.…”

“…It has happened-the visible dissolution of the colorblind boundaries by which health sciences librarianship frames its discourse. Influential works such as those on diversity and inclusion, the arrival of #critlib or critical librarianship in health sciences scholarship, and open condemnation on the brutalization of institutionalized racism and state-sanctioned violence against Black and Brown individuals are important narratives threading their way in a technical and competencies-focused field [1][2][3]. Efforts to address racism and social justice issues by the Journal of the Medical Library Association ( JMLA) have led to the outreach of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) health sciences librarians to address representation in the scholarly pipeline.…”